So a couple of corrections to this append. IBM has announced a SOA feature pack, which contains SCA, SDO, and DAS to match the specs that are being developed via a collaboration on http://www.osoa.org. The other feature pack is a webservices feature pack that provides additional capabilities such as the reliable asynchronous messaging profile.
We have not announced a Java EE 5 feature pack or any dates for the next major WebSphere release.
The development of these 2 feature packs are being developed in a much more open way, what is out there is a set of alpha's and there will be beta's in the not to distant future. We are looking for input on these features to ensure that we are meeting the communities requirements.
Alan Little
Chief Architect for WebSphere Application Server

I am very interested in using JAX-B, JAX-WS and other features on WAS 6.1, which we are already using, but since you label them alpha or beta, I do not see how I can possibly make any use of these versions.
What is the point? What can I do with an alpha or beta? The company would never deploy an alpha or a beta and the IBM site is full of dire warnings about even thinking of doing so.
Will these also be available in G.A. form? There is no reference to that in the articles and no time-frames other than a reference to WAS 7 being aeons away.
Features like JAX-B and even J2EE 5 are already available in fully supported general final form from Sun and other vendors.
Or am I missing something????
Is the idea that I should actually ignore the label and go ahead and deploy them?
The article talks of high support costs. Yet I though these were unsupported?
Thanks....

The concept of a feature pack is a new one for WebSphere. It a delivery of a package of new functon on top of an existing release (in this case WAS 6.1). A feature pack will provide this function in an optional manner, so only those customers who want this new function can obtain that function.
We are developing this function in a more open manner, providing alpha's and beta's to those customers who have the base upon which to install in the optional feature.
It is intended to GA these feature packs on the existing release. But this will be very dependent on the feedback we get from customers through the development program. I would suggest that if you are interested in these functions, see the following web sites.
Alan Little
For the SOA Feature Pack
https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/soawas61/
For the WebServices Feature Pack
https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/wsvwas61/

"No other area of Java EE 5 is covered by a feature pack, as far as I can tell."
Actually JAX-B is for one (yes I know that JAX-WS relies on it).
I said that they can release more parts of Javs EE 5 this way, not that already have. I predict that you will see more.....

"No other area of Java EE 5 is covered by a feature pack, as far as I can tell."

Actually JAX-B is for one (yes I know that JAX-WS relies on it).

I said that they can release more parts of Javs EE 5 this way, not that already have. I predict that you will see more.....

Point taken, Don. Indeed, we might see further parts of Java EE 5 coming along as further feature packs. No concrete plan has been announced there, though, so don't rely on it - let's first see these present feature packs for WAS 6.1 go GA :-)
That said, it is of course easier to deliver a new API as add-on (such as JAX-WS, which is effectively a separate API despite being the successor of JAX-RPC) than an upgrade to an existing core API (such as Servlet 2.5, JSP 2.1, JTA 1.1, EJB 3.0). So I would not expect the latter to appear as "feature packs" - rather in the form of a WebSphere 6.2 core product upgrade, if at all.
Juergen

Hi Alan,
one of the difficulties I see with this situation (and perhaps this is uncommon for most here), is that for those "enterprise" development shops that have the budget to use websphere (or any other commercially vended app server), the ability to beta features can be quite tough, in terms of time, resources, budget, etc. Going from version to version has been smoother (as of late), but traditionally migration on websphere has been tough. I mention this, b/c at least for us, beta testing anything isn't pragmatic. I'm just wondering what the articulation is in terms of benefits of the feature pack, capabilities, etc, for different segments of the websphere user demographic.
Jin

Features like JAX-B and even J2EE 5 are already available in fully supported general final form from Sun and other vendors. Or am I missing something????

If you check carefully, I think you'll find that the only "final" implementation of JavaEE 5 currently available is the Sun Reference Implementation (RI), which is made available approximately at the same time the specs themselves become final. (This is necessary so vendors developing their own implementations have something to compare against.) Some vendors have licensing agreements with Sun that allow them to re-ship the RI as their own branded product, but it's still the Sun RI under the covers.

If you check carefully, I think you'll find that the only "final" implementation of JavaEE 5 currently available is the Sun Reference Implementation (RI), which is made available approximately at the same time the specs themselves become final.<<

http://www.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr_pe/index.xml
"Sun Java System Application Server PE 9.0 is the first robust commercial Java EE 5 compatible application server in the market."
It is based on the Reference Implementation but of cource Sun adds support etc. to their commercial product.
.....
But if IBM releases JAXB, JAX-WS, and JPA reasonably soon that will go a long way to meet my needs......

Look like Sun becomes a little smarter this time. Let its licencees (IBM, BEA, Oracleetc.) to create a market and then take over the market from its licencees (because it owns Java!).
Cannot complain about Microsoft anymore :-).

In my developper point of view, I think that it's really a pity IBM focusing in this SOA stuff.
Most developments I see try only to bring applications running fine and (also) to satisfy customer needs - and it's already difficult just doing this. This SOA or SCA appears an overkill for the average needs (mmm, sorry, I've seen a lot of consultants trying to discern the reusable services in some companies for no great use).
So I expected to see more effort in putting JEE 5 stuff (which is supposed to easy and make develoment a little more fast) in the app servers.
Previous versions of JEE where just packaging more utilities, JEE 5 appears the first version to be more than that...
Like I said a really pity.
I'm going to wait then for WAS 7.

Yes, but frankly I've never used JEE 5 features, only tested JSF 1.0 et 1.1 stuff (and I'm waiting JSF 1.2 before really using it).
For EJB I'll just wait JEE 5 to use only the mapping capacities (if they can compare to something like spring + hibernate), and I'll have to think about unit testing these EJBs (yourk !).
Of course, if I worked for my own projects, I wouldn't be using this JEE stuff and instead sthing like tapestry (just looked at it, but appears really great) and perhaps EJB MDB if I want to use JMS.

Due to the anti-trust lawsuit IBM had to go through in the 80s, they are prohibited from announcing in advance any specific release, so it's pointless to ask them when JavaEE5 will be available for WebSphere.
You may very well have to wait after Geronimo 2 comes out...

Due to the anti-trust lawsuit IBM had to go through in the 80s, they are prohibited from announcing in advance any specific release, so it's pointless to ask them when JavaEE5 will be available for WebSphere.

You may very well have to wait after Geronimo 2 comes out...

This is incorrect. The antitrust consent decree ended on July 2, 2001 (see press release: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1996/July96/324.at.html). Unfortunately, it seems that the behaviors required by the consent decree became part of IBM's corporate culture. My guess is that they see some benefit to not preannouncing, because that causes problems (e.g., Microsoft's overpromising and underdelivering on Vista).
However, that being said, I think it causes problems for corporate customers who are wanting answers to questions like "When will IBM release a Java EE 5 version of WebSphere?" If I spend the effort to test and deploy WebSphere 6.1 now, will I get enough value out of it before WAS 7 comes out?

To answer my own question, I guess that the intention is that these feature packs will in fact be released as production updates of 6.1 after their alpha and beta cycles..and that is very good news.
We can get a lot of J2EE 5 that way without having to wait for WebSphere 7.
The article does not say that, but is it is a little confused to begin with. It refers to the feature packs as "alpha previews of WebSphere 7 features." I think that they are also alpha previews of pending formal updates of WebSphere 6.1. They just could not say that because of the rule against pre-announcement.
So these feature packs are actually very good news.......

We can get a lot of J2EE 5 that way without having to wait for WebSphere 7.

To reiterate a point made above: IBM did *not* release a Java EE 5 feature pack. They released a *Web Service feature pack* that happens to include JAX-WS 2.0, which is also included in Java EE 5. No other area of Java EE 5 is covered by a feature pack, as far as I can tell.
That said, it is of course great to see those feature packs for WAS 6.1 nevertheless. This strategy of introducing some new technologies before the next major release is certainly more agile than the traditional J2EE release cycle. In particular for the IBM world, where many are reluctant to upgrade their entire app server "just" for some new API.
Juergen

That said, it is of course great to see those feature packs for WAS 6.1 nevertheless. This strategy of introducing some new technologies before the next major release is certainly more agile than the traditional J2EE release cycle.

The #1 issue I have with IBM's products is that their product schedules are so different than their dependencies that they can't get standards support as fast as other vendors (e.g., WebSphere 6.1 could have been WebSphere 7 if Java EE 5 was out faster or WAS was released later).
I think IBM's making some steps in the right direction (and learning a thing or two from Geronimo) by turning WebSphere into an OGSi runtime. More cleanly componentizing the architecture should make IBM a little more agile when it comes to adding features.

I hope IBM improves Rational Application Developer. Our team evaluated RAD 6.0 and we found the product to be buggy and sluggish. I installed all of the recommended fixpaks but RAD6 was still unusable.
I've heard that IBM will release RAD7 in 2006. I haven't heard an exact release date from IBM.

I hope IBM improves Rational Application Developer. Our team evaluated RAD 6.0 and we found the product to be buggy and sluggish. I installed all of the recommended fixpaks but RAD6 was still unusable.

That's odd. RAD is nothing but Eclipse with a bunch of plugins, if you dislike it you will dislike Eclipse too.
RAD needs at least 700 MB or so of RAM to run properly. I have 1GB at my machine, and it runs fine. So I find your opinion very strange, because it doesn't match my experience in using it.

Instead of RAD, you can now use Application Server Toolkit included with WebSphere 6.1.
It newly includes full development and test capabilities for WAS 6.1, including Web Services, EJB's, JSF etc.....
RAD 6 does not support WAS 6.1 so you need to use AST 6.1 until RAD 7 is out..
RAD 7 is planned in fourth quarter and will be much more modular than RAD 6.....

I hope IBM improves Rational Application Developer. Our team evaluated RAD 6.0 and we found the product to be buggy and sluggish. I installed all of the recommended fixpaks but RAD6 was still unusable.

I've heard that IBM will release RAD7 in 2006. I haven't heard an exact release date from IBM.

++
The RAD should be really a plugin for the eclipse, that could be installed in the Eclipse 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, etc... Not an 'eclipse closed', that stayed outdated and slow. Yes, the RAD is much slower than the Eclipse. And I do not know is been because of 'the plugins'.... You already arrived it see the directory of installation of the RAD? Does not have MB, has GB... If will go to look the files of the RAD, he has several times the same plugin in folders different !?
The RAD is good, but some things can be better. I'm anxious for see the RAD 7.

Well, I can give you what my experience has been, since my company has been on the rational/ibm tooling for a while, from WSAD to RAD/RSA. For 99% of everything we do, we have found that we get more mileage out of bare eclipse 3.2 or with MyEclipse (now version 5). Why? Because unless you have gone through the experience of having to support multiple projects (really, not just in a lab, and not just eating your own dog food) and then compared it to the experience of something like MyEclipse (or even the bare eclipse 3.2 core) then you haven't experienced the frustration that I and my developers have (dozens of them in my group). Maybe we are just not smart enough ;-), but several of my developers and myself have had to do wholesale reinstalls of RSA after updates got corrupted and made it unuseable. Google to the rescue.
Sure, there are tuning options, there have even been fixes to simple problems (like the update manager, which didn't understand proxies, so we tricked it using deduction before the fixpack came out), but in general, the experience is less than desireable, and even less so if you factor in the cost of something like RSA/RAD.
What we have done instead, is to buy more memory (b/c if you think eclipse is a hog, try enabling some capabilities in RAD ;-), and run eclipse/MyEclipse for primary development and RAD/RSA for the runtime only (which we are rapidly moving off of)...
Jin

IBM is the only major JEE vendor without a JPA solution in place. The quality of RAD6 is much poorer than WSAD5. JSF is of poorer quality than Struts...
Is it that the best time for WebSphere has gone, or the best time for JEE has gone, or both?

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